China’s Political and Intellectual Foundations: From Sage Kings to Confucius

China's Political and Intellectual Foundations: From Sage Kings to Confucius is the first course in HarvardX's series on China. It introduces the country's history, geography and culture through three enduring questions, time, space and identity: how physical geography shaped early inhabitants, how China's many ethnicities affected Chinese identity, and how the origins of China are told in ancient texts and in modern archaeology. You study the bronze-age dynasties, Confucius and the Analects, and the competing schools of thought that followed, from Confucians to Legalists, whose political and moral ideas make up the country's intellectual foundations and still resonate today.

The course also teaches historical method: how to analyse texts and artifacts and how to explain the formation of complex civilisations. It is self-paced, fifteen weeks long at 1 to 3 hours per week, and rated introductory. Harvard lists it as free to audit on edX, with a verified certificate for $149.